Valuation of mortality risks - An economic perspective
Event details
| Date | 02.04.2014 |
| Hour | 13:15 › 14:30 |
| Speaker | Dr Andrea Leiter-Scheiring, Economics, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Innsbruck University, Austria |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Abstract:
We develop a theoretical account of how athletes who engage in risky sports value safety information. Based on the model we conjecture that the demand value of safety information rises with wealth and exposure and declines with the athlete?s ability to control risk through the use of information and skills. We use stated-preference data from a sample of backcountry skiers to empirically test the predictions of our model. The high degree of control over avalanche risk makes these athletes a well-suited population to study the demand value of safety information. Caution is however warranted as unobserved factors may jointly affect the athletes?
Perceived risk and their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for obtaining information. We use a recursive two-stage estimation approach to account for endogeneity concerns. The empirical results are generally supportive of our theoretical predictions and suggest that variations in athletes? WTP for safety information can be explained by personal beliefs about the usefulness of information."
Short biography:
Andrea Leiter-Scheiring is an Assistant Professor at the University of Innsbruck, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics. In 2005, 2006, and 2008/2009, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
Her fields of interest include health economics, environmental economics, international economics, and applied econometrics. Her research has been presented in various national and international conferences and the outcomes are published in international scientific journals like Health Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics or Ecological Economics. Her current research is on the valuation of mortality risks and on bilateral trade of natural resources.
We develop a theoretical account of how athletes who engage in risky sports value safety information. Based on the model we conjecture that the demand value of safety information rises with wealth and exposure and declines with the athlete?s ability to control risk through the use of information and skills. We use stated-preference data from a sample of backcountry skiers to empirically test the predictions of our model. The high degree of control over avalanche risk makes these athletes a well-suited population to study the demand value of safety information. Caution is however warranted as unobserved factors may jointly affect the athletes?
Perceived risk and their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for obtaining information. We use a recursive two-stage estimation approach to account for endogeneity concerns. The empirical results are generally supportive of our theoretical predictions and suggest that variations in athletes? WTP for safety information can be explained by personal beliefs about the usefulness of information."
Short biography:
Andrea Leiter-Scheiring is an Assistant Professor at the University of Innsbruck, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics. In 2005, 2006, and 2008/2009, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
Her fields of interest include health economics, environmental economics, international economics, and applied econometrics. Her research has been presented in various national and international conferences and the outcomes are published in international scientific journals like Health Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics or Ecological Economics. Her current research is on the valuation of mortality risks and on bilateral trade of natural resources.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
- This event is internal
Contact
- Prof. Michael Lehning, CRYOS